US POLITICS: AMERICANS, PLEASE WELCOME YOUR NEW PRESIDENT... SCOTT BROWN!

just watched that movie this week! I think it fucked me up when I was a kid

i was told the future would be all jenny agutter running around in a green napkin, everybody over 30 dead, living in a big mall. lyfe.

i only faintly remember the tv show. wait, it was on tv too, right?

Yeah it was called The Hills

ok lol @ alma mater :-/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqeOxfZ8PCE&feature=player_embedded

what a creep

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/alleged_phone_tamperer_is_young_nat-sec_expert.php?ref=fpa

not sure i'm gettin it. his credentials not legit but he fakes it well?

oh i dunno about the credentials--i mean id call them fake but theyre so bizarre & obscure that itd almost be more hilarious if they were real--i am just always weirded out by these hyperambitious 19-yr-old partisans, even moreso if they are arrested for trying to wiretap a senators office

dmouth was crawling with 19 y.o. hyperpartisan conservatives. it's not even that i disagree with them (i do) so much as it is that i think it's deeply, deeply weird to be a strident conservative when you're young.

kinda like what pj rourke said, "if you're a republican when you're young, you have no heart. if you're a democrat when you're old, you have no brain." i'd agree with the first part, totally: being a hard-nosed moralizing con when you're a teen or twenty something is either a) some new youthful contrarianism (people just don't GET me!) or b) a sign that you are kinda mentally ill.

People I knew at Dartmouth were not happy there because of these sheltered true believers. One of my friends had a conversion from repressed Republican asst for Congressman Gopher to full-on queer rights activist Democrat, but he went to St Olaf.

Ha -- here we have LOTS of young Republicans, always have. Thank their Cuban parents.

almost all of them give lip service to gay rights and don't give a shit about abortion. They just talk tough on national security and taxes.

castro really has been a shitty deal for everyone, hasn't he.

yup

"If you're a republican when you're young, you have no heart. if you're a democrat when you're old, you have no brain."

http://bucf.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/fidel_castro_dead.jpg

See, Albert, this is the thing. The vast majority of people don't really care about abortion either way as long as it doesn't become their own problem, so why some damn Senator feels entitled to fuck around 150 million women *and* call himself a Democrat, I do not know. I cannot believe that Nebraskans would vote for a Dem senator without expecting Dem policies, like respect for choice.

Grayson has just come up with a great soundbite: apparently HCR is trapped between 'the lazies and the crazies'.

You're not the first to call me Albert. Nor shall you be the last.

ome damn Senator feels entitled to fuck around 150 million women *and* call himself a Democrat

i can't really take any more Teddy encomiums...

LOL or make the fuckers sit one (1) quiz on reproductive health before they're allowed to have a opinion. And gff, at least with the Kennedys you get orgasm.

We're so sorry, Uncle Albert.

srsly Alfred, my bad!

Oh, no worries, suzy! Blame The Castro Effect.

"if you're a republican when you're young, you have no heart. if you're a democrat when you're old, you have no brain."

Uh, PJ's funny and all but, though this is often falsely attributed to Churchill, it's certainly older than O'Rourke

let's just give it to Cicero and call it a day

I ain't giving shit to that wizened pedo.

huh did not know that MW, have always heard it attributed to PJ

"always" = the one and only time it was brought to my attn

Tony Blair said a version where the young man's a socialist and the old man's a social democrat.

Tony, at least, is making a slightly more contemporary point (LOL New Labour). Considering that Churchill was a conservative as a young man and a Liberal at 35, the attribution sounds even more preposterous.

Do we need a SOTU thread?

Also: ABC News reports that Bam will ask for the repeal of DADT.

Dare I stay up for this? When is it on?

is it bad that I'll probably choose to watch Inglourious Basterds over this?

FOUND IT: 6 pacific, 9 eastern, 2am greenwich mean time, y'all.

But you can watch an inglorious bastard on the House dais tonight!

i think it starts at 9?

pelosi today said that defense spending should be frozen as well, and mentioned contracting in particular. and come on, why not? tons of money is wasted there. axelrod @ interview on fox responded that we're at war with al qaeda & need to do all we can to keep america safe and blablabla. way to buy into GOP talking points!

Yeah but that's a non-answer on Axelrod's part if some tangental statement with no confirm or deny is his response (Fox also paints Pelosi as some ball-eating nazibot). Targeted spending on troops and the materials they need (and not cutting that) is not the same thing as trimming other defense-related costs (also dude is not going on Fox to give them some undermining quote about Xe sucking).

And it begins: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/1/27/831144/-State-of-the-Union-excerpts

no, i didn't see it that way as a non-answer, he was asked about what pelosi said & it seemed to be an answer directly disagreeing with pelosi and giving as supporting rationale all the same national security platitudes we're used to. i'd think that other defense-related costs are still under the umbrella of "spending freeze doesn't apply" though they shouldn't be IMHO

correct me if I'm wrong but is this is gonna be one of those speeches where guys like me get super inspired and feel like we oughta stop bein dicks about it and just get on board the democratic party express train to gradual progress and we all feel great about it for about three weeks and then six months later it turns out it's ok to tap private citizens' phones & torture people who haven't even been charged with any crimes or anything & practically every item on the agenda is getting fine-tuned by evangelical reactionaries who intend to dial back all the gains our side made from 1960 to roughly 1980 and then we feel like chumps for even letting our cynicism abate for even a moment?

There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/os-no-moon-for-nasa-20100126,0,2770904.story

^^^OTOH Florida does get high speed rail...

no john, i'll hold your cynicism for you and give it back to you at the end of the night.

xpost

BTW daria I don't know if you're able to listen to BBC radio online but for a masterclass in politician non-answers (but with very belligerent interlocution), check out the Today programme on Radio 4. Would be interested in your opinion.

sounds delightful! i really enjoy listening to discussions that are a combination of extremely formal + extremely belligerent. i probably can find a way to listen, have discovered with this iphone thing that lots of radio is much more easily accessible (radio france app is pretty nice). will see what the bbc has

xp
Do we need a SOTU thread?

i could handle weekly rolling politics threads, like with the nfl posts or whatever. missing an hour of ILX hysteria and having to infer from the fallout what exactly a republican said because it's behind the cut is like watching a richard pryor show and having to syllogise his jokes to find out that he shot up his car.

mainly watching the SOTU to see what uncle biden has to offer as best supporting actor

lol at xpost

D, It's also weird - for an American ear listening to English-language media - hearing men who can make their point without sounding like they are suffering from some form of testosterone poisoning and women who don't make yam-yam-yam bitchy-girl noise while playing wingwoman to their authoritative male counterparts.

we had an SOTU thread last year & the year before didn't we?

doubt we had one last year

I don't get the point of watching this tbh. just gonna read the text later + 'reactions'...the actual event is pretty boring.

The point of it is to drink every time he says 'let me be clear'.

I was just about to post a link to this: State of the Union Drinking Game 2010

I don't get the point of watching this tbh. just gonna read the text later + 'reactions'...the actual event is pretty boring.

what are you even talking about, the watching is the part where we get to feel all "hell yeah, our man is going to seriously bring it now, everything is going to be all right now that Obama is in the building"

as vs. if you just read it later you go "hmm, well-written for sure, probably bullshit tho tbh"